Raids on our sons’ residences a deliberate act – Ijaw group alleges

This week’s siege on the home of a foremost ijaw leader, Edwin Clark by the some officials of the Nigeria Police has continued to receive condemnations.

The latest, from a group known as Ijaw Solidarity Forum, ISF, not only condemned the raid on Clark’s residence but as well as the siege on the home of Kingsley Kuku, a former Presidential Amnesty Coordinator under the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

In a statement signed by the Group’s Coordinator, Borowei Peretei and made available to us on Friday in Akure, Ondo State capital, he described the raids as a deliberate ethnic target on its prominent sons.

The group also alleged that the raids were orchestrated at embarrassing and silencing opposition voices ahead of 2019 election.“The move is a clearly premeditated political attempt and a tacit ploy to intimidate the opposition ahead of the 2019 general elections”, the statement read.

Peretei said that nothing could have offended the people of Ijaw ethnic tribe more than the reckless conduct of the police, all in the name of searching for non-existing arms and ammunition in the homes of their illustrious sons.The statement further read, “No bigger insult could have been meted out to the people of Ijaw ethnic tribe by the police than the raid on the residence of a 91 year old foremost Ijaw son.

“We cannot fathom what a man of Chief Clark’s age would be doing with weapons which as a matter of fact only exist in the imagination of the police. And more offending to our collective sensibilities was the fact that there was no trace of any arm or ammunition in the Elder Statesman’s residence at the end of the unjustifiable search”.

Peretei also lamented an earlier raid similarly carried out on the ancestral hometown of Kingsley Kuku in Arogbo – Ijaw.

“It will be recalled that a similar raid was carried out by a team of police detachment on the instruction of Police Inspector General at the Arogbo-Ijaw residence of Dr. Kingsley Kuku. Some relations of the former Presidential Amnesty Coordinator were manhandled while some properties were either destroyed or badly handled during the course of this raid. At the end, there was no trace of any arm or ammunition in the residence,” he said.

The group said that they refused to believe that these chain of illegal events were mere coincidences.Rather, the group was of the opinion that “the police under Ibrahim Idris was merely unveiling a rehearsal of planned police harassments and intimidation to be unleashed on the opposition voices in 2019.”

The group, however, warned that any further police harassment targeted on any son or daughter of Ijaw ethnic tribe could derail the prevailing peace being enjoyed in the Niger Delta region of the country.

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